Making sense of this crazy world
I am a student of history, a teacher of history and a writer of history. You could say history is a passion of mine. I have a website for students and I had been mulling around this idea of a podcast for some time. Would people be interested? Would I make it interesting? That’s essentially what was holding me back. But with a new year starting, the craziness still all around us, I thought what the hell – give it a go, John! The primary purpose of the podcast is to use history to help us make a little more sense of this crazy world we are living in. I aim to do this by using history. It’s not the only tool to be used, but it is my chosen tool. Everything happens in a context and that context is recent history. But that recent history is almost always the result of older history. We have to go back into our past to understand today. I could easily rattle off a hundred other aims but trust me, they will be introduced as we go along. But there are two other aims I must own up to straight away. The first is that I really want to lay it on the line that history is always about people. I think it was the great historian, Eric Hobsbawm who said unemployment is an economic statistic but a human experience. And you can’t appear to be further away from people than with dry statistics – but you’re not. And the second is that there is always more than one story to tell; more than one “truth”. History is an interpretation of the past, nothing more. There are always other interpretations. When we look at this crazy world of ours today and try to make sense of what is happening, it is so important to bear that in mind - someone else thinks differently. And if we don’t understand that other interpretation, if we don’t even know it exists, then we can’t reach an understanding of what is happening. And our truth is less secure! I hope that makes sense.
Listen on:
Episodes
20 hours ago
20 hours ago
This episode looks a little deeper at the period in which the industrialising world catches up and overtakes Britain.
*Do note that since researching and recording this episode, India has overtaken Japan to become the world's 4th biggest economy. How fast this world of ours is changing!
Sunday Jun 22, 2025
Sunday Jun 22, 2025
I’m continuing my look at the industrialising world by focusing on the globalisation of the industrial revolution, well at least its spread to Europe and America!
Sunday Jun 15, 2025
Sunday Jun 15, 2025
I’m looking at the first industrial revolution in Britain that did so much to shape the world we live in today and in this second episode I want to highlight the key motivating factor: the profit motive, as well as the importance of the railways.
Sunday Jun 08, 2025
Sunday Jun 08, 2025
I’m changing tack completely in this little series to look at some of the truly big events that shaped the world we live in today. And I’m beginning with the industrial revolution in Britain. Hugely significant because not only did the British economy rapidly grow, and eventually the world economy, but it did so because of a technological revolution, simple though that may have been at first, and because of, and through, a social revolution that utterly transformed society.
Sunday Jun 01, 2025
Sunday Jun 01, 2025
This week we are going to look at the UN embroiled in a civil war in the Congo at the beginning of the 1960s. A sorry tale that also serves to illustrate just what imperialism had done to Africa.
Sunday May 25, 2025
Sunday May 25, 2025
The way the United Nations is being ignored by the Soviet Union with regard to Ukraine, ignored and attacked by Israel in Gaza (more than 280 UNWRA and other UN Humanitarian personnel killed by the Israeli Defence Force), it seems as if we are witnessing the end of the UNs usefulness. But this isn’t the first time the United Nations has faced huge controversy, has seemed to be finished as an international peace-keeping body, as a force for good. There are two truly massive crises that I’m aware of that I thought would be useful to share with you.
Sunday May 18, 2025
Sunday May 18, 2025
This is my second episode looking at the Kurds, the largest ethnic group in the world without a home to call its own. Having looked at the Kurds in Turkey and in Syria, today we’ll look at the Kurds in Iraq and Iran.
Sunday May 11, 2025
Sunday May 11, 2025
I’m looking at the Kurds today, the largest ethnic group in the world without a home to call its own. That fact alone makes it necessary for us to know something about their history, I think. Well, this is the first of two episodes doing that.
Sunday May 04, 2025
Sunday May 04, 2025
This episode sets out to explain the reasons behind the schism in the Islamic world between Sunnis and Shi'ites or Shias, as well as the consequences of the schism.
Sunday Apr 27, 2025
Sunday Apr 27, 2025
A final episode on Syria taking a look at the consequences of the civil war, most importantly on people but also on the politics of the region.